Whatever story you want to tell, tell it at the right size.

Yes, but Hollywood is the strangest place in that they’ll torpedo their own film to prove an emotional point.

Something about Texas I’m not proud of is that our state murdered 37 people last year alone.

I’ve always been most interested in the politics of everyday life: your relation to whatever you’re doing, or what your ambitions are, where you live, where you find yourself in the social hierarchy.

I think I got really lucky with Slacker. That was a film that probably shouldn’t have been seen.

No one is asking what happened to all the homeless. No one cares, because it’s easier to get on the subway and not be accosted.

I worked offshore as an oil worker for a couple of years.

The worst thing is that you used to be able to show interesting films on campuses. Those places are all gone.

The truth will only be told over a career.

It’s luck that one thing works out and one doesn’t, it’s sort of happenstance.

I do find myself at the moment, due to the success of School of Rock, to be on people’s radar a little.

It’s disappointing to see films become pure entertainment, so that it’s not an art form.

I think you get in trouble if you make experimental big studio films.

Whatever story you want to tell, tell it at the right size.

I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles.

Well, you have to keep your faith in the fact that there are a lot of intelligent people who are actively looking for something interesting, people who have been disappointed so many times.

I want to make a film about a factory worker.

Hollywood has a way of sucking the world’s talent to it.

I lost a year or two in there, trying to get films financed that I didn’t know would never get financing.

Before Sunrise did very well internationally. It made as much in Italy and Korea as it did here.

Filmmakers are going to make films, just like painters are going to paint.

I think there are more films being made, but there are probably less outlets for them and distributors.

I always sensed instinctively from the earliest age that I was being lied to.

I’ve always liked the minds of criminals, they seem similar to artists.

Everyone is encouraged to see their lives, the world through the eyes of the rich.

I’ve never been a guy who had more than a toe in Hollywood anyway, so my toe is more easily lopped off than most.